


I’m Not Ready to Give Up Yet

by Jaidan Mosra (Myriai)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: Do you really think this was a good idea Rey?, F/M, Rey tries to change Kylo's mind, risky business
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 12:54:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14521044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myriai/pseuds/Jaidan%20Mosra
Summary: A year after the battle on Crait, Rey hatches a risky gamble to try one more time to break through the shell of Kylo Ren to get at Ben Solo and change his mind.





	I’m Not Ready to Give Up Yet

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the Reylo Fanfic Recs 'Rewrite the Stars Fest' for the prompt "Aren't you a little short for a Storm Trooper" given by AdamDriversWife
> 
> Canon-compliant. Rey comes back for Kylo in a desperate attempt to change his mind.
> 
> I tried writing two other things for this particular fest and none of them seemed to work so I wound up with this. I hope it's somewhat enjoyable ^^;

I’m Not Ready to Give Up Yet

 

“Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?”

The words were hissed as Rey found herself yanked back against a large, familiar form.  Even through the filters on the storm trooper uniform she could pick up a scent that belonged to one person.

The group she was trailing as she tried to blend in vanished around the corner.  They hadn’t even really noticed that she was there originally as she planned.  “Sir?” she asked trying to keep her disguise.

“Even if you’ve blocked the bond, I’d still know you anywhere, scavenger,” Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren and Supreme Leader of the First Order, stated flatly.  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw you into the cell block or, even better, kill you right here and now?”

“Because if you wanted to, you would’ve done it already,” Rey said calmly.

“Do you think so?” Kylo Ren asked.

“Yes,” Rey said forcing confidence into her voice—this was not how she planned this.

“And what do you hope to accomplish with this particular maneuver?” he questioned.  “Did you think I’d welcome you back with open arms after you rejected me?  Do you think you can still coax your way back onto the winning side?  It’s only a matter of time before I finish bringing the Resistance down.”

 “I don’t think it will be the Resistance that goes down,” Rey said fighting to keep her calm, “but that is not why I came.”

“Then why are you here?” he questioned.  “Do you think I can still be saved?”

Bitterness dripped off that final word and Rey flinched, grateful for the mask that concealed her features.  It was true she’d come in hopes of trying to break through to Ben Solo through the shell of Kylo Ren, but it wasn’t the only reason.

She felt Kylo tense behind her and found herself yanked into an alcove with a hissed warning to be silent.  A contingent of storm troopers passed by led by a chrome-suited warrior who strode next to the black-clad Armitage Hux.  They marched past and the two Force-wielders stayed hidden for a good five minutes afterwards.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll follow my directions explicitly,” he instructed her.  “It’ll keep you alive long enough for me to decide what to do with you.”

Rey nodded and felt Kylo reaching through the Force before he shoved her out of the alcove ahead of him.  “Keep going straight for five hundred meters, turn right, and head straight for the lift.  Pretend you’re being my bodyguard.”

He must’ve felt her startlement through the Force because he glanced down at her and she could’ve sworn she saw the briefest flicker of amusement cross his expression.  “It’s ceremonial,” he stated.  “I usually don’t bother with it, but they won’t question me.”

Rey nodded and silently led the way the direction he gave her.  They didn’t see anyone on their way to the lift and got in.  “Keep looking straight ahead,” he told her. “As long as you play the role correctly you don’t have to worry about the interrogation block—yet.”

Rey kept her straight-backed pose as the lift whooshed upwards.

They arrived and Kylo shoved her unceremoniously from the elevator into a large open deck that seemed to have no one else on it after he relieved her of the weapons she carried.  “Take off that ridiculous uniform now,” Kylo ordered.

“What?” Rey stuttered.

“I assume you’re wearing something underneath it,” Kylo asked another flash of amusement passing over his features.

“Of course I am,” Rey said stiffly.

He gave her a long, silent look and she pulled off the helmet first and looked around for a place to put it.  “Drop it on the floor; I’ll dispose of it later.”

She let it fall and then worked on pulled all the straps and buckles that kept the uniform together until she was stripped down to the black clothing worn beneath the armor.

“Why are you here, Rey?” he asked quietly.  “Your answer determines whether I kill you now or take you to the interrogation chambers and extract answers from you that way.”

Rey reached into her pocket and while he stiffened Kylo did not make any moves.  She extracted something from her pocket and held it out to him. His hand engulfed hers for a moment as he accepted what she presented him and he opened it and stared numbly at the golden dice in his hand.  Unlike in the control room on Crait, these dice didn’t fade away and he could feel the weight of them heavy in his hand—he almost already knew the answer to the question he was about to pose.  “Why did you bring this to me?” he demanded.

“It’s the only thing I could get my hands on for you of your parents,” Rey said quietly.  “I’m sure you already know, but we lost General Organa six months ago.”

Kylo’s hand clenched around the dice and his face paled.  “What do you mean?” he demanded.

“The space sickness never quite went away after the bridge of the _Raddus_ was blown open,” Rey said.  “Her health continued to decline until she passed away in her sleep.  She was cremated on Yavin 4.”

“Why Yavin 4?” Kylo frowned.

“Because it was the safest place to be at the time,” she replied.  “You told me once that you didn’t hate your father and I know you didn’t pull the trigger on the gun that cracked the _Raddus_.  I couldn’t think of anything else to bring with me.”

“Do you really think they matter to me anymore?” he sneered and threw the dice across his quarters in the general vicinity of the waste receptacle.

She flinched and Rey regretted having to remove the helmet because she wasn’t quite as adept at controlling her expressions as she would like.  His voice was rough and controlled, but she could sense the lies in his actions she could felt the sharp, metallic tang of sadness in the Force.  She tilted her head and she knew she might regret the next words, but she spoke them anyway.  “I _know_ it matters to you, Ben,” she said softly.

“Don’t call me that?” Kylo gritted out.

“Is it really that despicable of a name?” Rey asked softly.  “Do you really hate it so much?”

“They abandoned me to a kitchen droid and then to an uncle that nearly killed me, why would I want to keep _that_ name?” he demanded.

She could almost see the cracks in the veneer of Kylo Ren to the point she could almost, _almost_ make out the hurt and broken child that had been Ben Solo before anything else happened.  While their Force Bond revealed many things to him about her past, it also showed many things to her about his—things that she wasn’t ready to bring up because she knew what came next would mean life or death for her.

She’d decided after Leia’s funeral to try one more time to reach Ben Solo.  She’d been gratified to see he still didn’t bother with his mask as he hadn’t when he brought her to Snoke what felt like ages ago, but was only about eight months previous.  She was bombarded by the raging emotions in the man in front of her and smiled sadly.  “You’re still denying the Light?” she asked sadly.

She went flying and slammed against the wall as Kylo lashed out at her and the breath was driven out of her.  He stalked towards her and she noticed his black-gloved hand was trembling as it reached for her throat.  “Shut up,” he snarled.  “You don’t know anything.”

Though his hand wrapped around her throat it didn’t tighten enough to choke her and Rey could feel the shaking that Kylo Ren—no Ben Solo—was trying to hide.  Rey found herself able to move her hands and she slowly reached up and wrapped them around the dark-haired man’s wrist.  “If you’re going to kill me, do it,” she stated softly.

“Before I do anything to you I am going to extract every bit of information on the Resistance from you and then you will be publicly executed on the HoloNet that will broadcast to the entire galaxy to show them that their hope is dead,” Kylo declared his hand going to the comlink on his belt.

At first Rey felt herself tense up, she could feel a dark resolve in the Force that told her that maybe this was a foolish gamble after all.  “Good luck getting any new information on the Resistance from me,” Rey said.  “I’ve been incommunicado since General Organa’s funeral.  Your intelligence reports are going to be more up-to-date than anything I have.  I’m not quite naïve enough to think that this is going to go exactly as I planned it.”

“Then how is it going to go?” Kylo demanded softly.

“There are so many ways it can go that it would likely take me over an hour to tell you,” Rey said.  “But we don’t have an hour…”

Ben’s grip tightened on her throat and she felt her air cut off. “What do you mean?”

She suddenly reached for the Force and shoved him across the room, dropping lightly to her feet and the blaster Kylo had taken from her flew into her hand just as the lift dinged and opened to a cascade of laser fire.  She and Kylo both dodged to the side, pieces of furniture moving under Force manipulation to block the blasters.

“Well, isn’t this convenient.  I seem to have caught our esteemed Supreme Leader fraternizing with the enemy who supposedly killed Supreme Leader Snope.  You won’t be able to get out of this one, Ren.”

Rey tensed, she’d never really heard General Armitage Hux speak before, but the sneer in his voice was enough to make her cringe.  “We received a communique that something like this may be happening just ten minutes ago,” Hux smirked.  “I would give you a chance to surrender, but I think we’ll be far better off if you just die.  Both of you—though admittedly killing the girl on a HoloNet is a splendid idea, I’ll have to extract the data from the security cameras for that purpose.  It’s time for you sorcerers to go extinct as it should have been long ago.”

There was a sound of screeching metal as one of the pieces of the room was wrenched free and slammed into the detachment of troopers before they realized what was happening.  More pieces of the structure were pulled down and knocked more of the soldiers out.

“We’ve got to go— _now_ ,” Rey said.

She crossed the space between her and the bewildered man in black and yanked his wrist and yanked him towards the elevator door.  As soon as they were inside, she pulled her primary comlink out and keyed it on.  “R2 we’re in…” Rey glanced up and rattled off the number on the elevator giving the Astromech droid instructions to keep it moving.

“What’s going on?” Kylo demanded finally recovering enough to retrieve his voice.

Rey whirled and he felt a hyposyringe inject into his skin through the material of his clothing and he was out before he realized what happened.  Rey eased her way under his arm and hefted him up grunting audibly.  “Why do you have to be so _heavy_?” she complained to her unconscious prisoner.

They moved further down to the hangar bay where Rey met up with the blue and white Astromech.  R2 whistled instructions to her and she nodded and they quietly moved through the hangar.  R2 disrupted communications shipwide and she moved as quickly as she could to where she knew Kylo’s command ship was located.  The ramp was already lowered and Rey swore as she realized there were at least two people on board.  However, the Command Ship was their only hope of escape for now, Rey hadn’t had enough time to formulate a Plan B.  She moved up the ramp dragging her heavy black burden and dropped him on the other side of the ramp and hit the button to pull it in.

She heard the sounds of running feet and calmly turned her blaster in the correct direction and blasted a hole in the two troopers that were on board.  Stepping over their bodies she made it to the bridge and hurriedly put in the commands that R2 scrounged up for her in.  She had the ship in the air and they whooshed through the bay doors just as it began to shut.

Her fingers ran quickly over the controls she’d studied tirelessly for the last two months while she’d put this particular hare-brained plot together.  Rey admitted to herself it was probably best she’d never let Finn or Poe in on her scheme.  So far she managed to be lucky and everything mostly worked as she planned aside from the fact that Kylo Ren caught her before she found her way to him.

Admittedly, the transmission she’d had R2 transmit into the mainframe for General Hux had been a last resort.  Whether or not she was going to regret that she wasn’t sure yet, but she’d managed to accomplish the mission she’d set for herself when she made a promise on Leia’s funeral pyre to bring Ben back.

She angled the shields and hit the button to launch themselves beyond the _Finalizer_ to get to somewhere she could kick the hyperdrive into action.  She piloted her way through the screaming TIEs that started streaming out of the destroyer and finally hit enough open space to make it into Hyperspace.

The first jump would be a short one just to get them out of the immediate area of the _Finalizer_.  There’d been enough sedative in that syringe to knock out a happabore so hopefully it would keep Kylo Ren down long enough for her to get the second set of coordinates in that required a bit longer to plot a course through.

Once the starlines arced outside, Rey allowed herself to relax for a moment and moved through the ship.  She took the two bodies and dragged them towards one of the escape pods on the ship and managed to heft them inside and slam the door after she stripped them of everything they wore.  She had no idea what she would do with the armor they’d been wearing, but old habits died hard and she could probably find a place to offload the items for some credits to fund her next plan.

Kylo Ren she dragged to one of the quarters on the ship and cuffed his hands and feet to the metal and instructed R2 on what to do in case he somehow managed to fight his way out of the sedative induced unconsciousness before she was ready.

She returned to the bridge and settled down to wait out the drop into hyperspace, inputting commands in the computer to drop the pod with the bodies as soon as they dropped out of space.

The notification of dropping out of hyperspace kicked on and Rey woke from her light doze to take the controls.  As soon as they dropped out she heard the escape pod jettison.  She moved over to the navigation board and waited for what felt like hours for the course to be settled.  Once the computer notified her it was done, she hit the button to head off into hyperspace again.

The escape pod jettisoned towards the fiery star in the system and Rey relaxed slightly as they left it behind.

R2’s squeal of alarm echoed through the ship and Rey grabbed her blaster and raced towards the room where R2 had been slammed into the wall.  Kylo Ren glared at her from the bed rubbing his wrists.  “What just happened?”

Rey readied herself for combat as she spoke.  “You just betrayed the First Order,” she said.

“Where are we?”

“In hyperspace,” Rey said.  “We should be able to avoid the First Order for a little while to let you get your bearings.”

“My bearings are going to have me taking you back to the _Finalizer_ and executing you myself,” Kylo snarled.  “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m Rey of Jakku,” she said.  “And you are no longer Supreme Ruler of the First Order.”

“Why didn’t you just kill me instead of this ridiculous setup?” he demanded.

“Because I’m not ready to give up yet,”  Rey said simply and pulled the trigger on the blaster she’d set to stun before entering the room.

**Author's Note:**

> Didn't have a chance to run it through a Beta, hopefully I caught most of the mistakes ^^;


End file.
